Method and apparatus for controlling information scrolling on touch-screen

ABSTRACT

An apparatus to control playback of multimedia contents comprising a touch screen to display an information scroll controlling bar and a scroll pointer, the information scroll controlling bar and the scroll pointer being included in an information scroll controlling region, and a controller to sense a touch at the scroll pointer on the touch screen, to sense a movement of the touch in a direction to a location outside the information scroll controlling region on the touch screen, to set a moving rate of the scroll pointer based on the sensed location outside the information scroll controlling region to control playback of multimedia contents, and to move the scroll pointer in a moving direction based on the direction of the movement.

CROSS-REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATION

This application is a continuation of U.S. application Ser. No.13/552,350 filed Jul. 18, 2012 now U.S. Pat. No. 8,305,356, which is acontinuation of U.S. application Ser. No. 12/409,858, filed Mar. 24,2009 now U.S. Pat. No. 8,253,704, which claims the benefit of KoreanPatent Application No. 2008-79038, filed Aug. 12, 2008 in the KoreanIntellectual Property Office, the disclosures of which is incorporatedherein by reference.

BACKGROUND

1. Field

Aspects of the present invention relate to a method and apparatus tocontrol contents displayed on a portable terminal, and moreparticularly, to a method and apparatus to control information scrollingof data on a touch screen of a portable terminal.

2. Description of the Related Art

Currently, portable terminals including a touch screen (such as personaldigital assistants (PDA), portable multimedia players (PMP), MPEG audiolayer-3 (MP3), and mobile phones) have been widely used. These portableterminals provide various contents including predetermined images, videosignals, and/or audio signals.

In order to improve a users' convenience, the portable terminals includea graphical user interface (GUI), which includes a slider or a scrollbar to operate a contents display region. However, a technology tominutely adjust a content display region by using the slider or thescroll bar on a touch screen of the portable terminal is desirable.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION

Aspects of the present invention provide a method and apparatus ofcontrolling contents scrolling on a touch screen of a portable terminal.

According to an aspect of the present invention, there is provided amethod of controlling information scrolling on a touch screen, themethod including: displaying an information scroll controlling region onthe touch screen; sensing a touch for a scroll pointer in theinformation scroll controlling region and performing a draggingoperation at a location of the touch on the touch screen; in response toa dragged location being out of a moving region of the scroll pointer inthe information scroll controlling region, changing the informationscroll controlling region; and adjusting a location to displayinformation in response to the changing of the information scrollcontrolling region.

The information scroll controlling region may be a scroll bar and/or aslider.

The sensing of the touch may include: in response to the touch beingsensed on the touch screen, determining whether the touched location isin the scroll controlling region; and in response the touched locationbeing in the scroll controlling region, generating a touch startingevent.

The performing of the dragging operation may include: checking whetherthe touched location on the touch screen is in a scroll pointer region;in response to the touched location not being in the scroll pointerregion, moving the scroll pointer to the touched location; andcalculating a dragged direction and/or distance of the touch from thescroll pointer.

The performing of the dragging operation may include dragging and movingthe scroll pointer simultaneously.

The changing of the information scroll controlling region may beperformed in response the touched point on the scroll pointer beingdragged from the touched location in a direction perpendicular to amoving direction of the scroll pointer or in a diagonal direction.

The changing of the information scroll controlling region may includeexpanding or reducing the scroll controlling region in proportion to thedragging distance of the touch.

The changing of the information scroll controlling region may includeexpanding a moving region of the scroll pointer in the informationscroll controlling region to the left and the right.

The changing of the information scroll controlling region may includechanging a location and numerical values of standard values for themoving region of the scroll pointer in the scroll controlling region.

The changing of the information scroll controlling region may includeexpanding the information scroll controlling region to the left, right,upper and lower sides.

The changing of the information scroll controlling region may includesetting an expansion region and a reduction region for the scrollcontrolling region in the upper and lower side of the touch screen, andexpanding or reducing the scroll controlling region to a limit value,when the touched point on the scroll pointer is dragged to the expansionregion or the reduction region.

The method may further include changing a location of the scroll pointeraccording to a finger performing dragging on the touch screen.

The method may further include moving the scroll pointer with an objectperforming dragging and representing the dragged location with a line onthe touch screen.

The adjusting of the location for displaying information may includechanging a location of information on the screen and/or informationnumerical value according to the change of the information scrollcontrolling region.

The method may further include returning the expanded or reduced scrollcontrolling region to an original scale when a termination of the touchis sensed on the touch screen.

According to another aspect of the present invention, there is providedan apparatus for controlling information scrolling, the apparatusincluding: a touch screen unit to display an information scrollcontrolling region and a scroll pointer in the information scrollcontrolling region, and to sense a touch thereon; a control unit todetect the touch for the scroll pointer in the information scrollcontrolling region displayed on the touch screen unit, to change theinformation scroll controlling region in response to the touch beingdragged to be out of a moving region of the scroll pointer, and toadjust an information location according to the change of theinformation scroll controlling region.

The touch screen unit may include a graphic user interface to controlthe information scroll controlling region.

According to another aspect of the present invention, there is provideda computer readable recording medium having embodied thereon a computerprogram for executing a method of controlling information scrolling on atouch screen.

According to another aspect of the present invention, there is provideda method of controlling information scrolling on a touch screen, of acomputing device, having an information scroll controlling region and ascroll pointer in the information scroll controlling region, the methodincluding: sensing a dragging touch in the information scrollcontrolling region; and in response to a dragged location of thedragging touch being out of a moving region of the scroll pointer in theinformation scroll controlling region, changing the information scrollcontrolling region.

Additional aspects and/or advantages of the invention will be set forthin part in the description which follows and, in part, will be obviousfrom the description, or may be learned by practice of the invention.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

These and/or other aspects and advantages of the invention will becomeapparent and more readily appreciated from the following description ofthe embodiments, taken in conjunction with the accompanying drawings ofwhich:

FIGS. 1A through 1D illustrate scroll bars according to embodiments ofthe present invention;

FIGS. 2A and 2B respectively illustrate a scroll bar and a sliderdisplayed on a touch screen according to an embodiment of the presentinvention;

FIG. 3 illustrates a moving of a scroll pointer on a touch screenaccording to an embodiment of the present invention;

FIG. 4 is a conceptual diagram illustrating a method of controllinginformation scrolling on a touch screen according to an embodiment ofthe present invention;

FIG. 5 is a block diagram of an apparatus to control informationscrolling on a touch screen according to an embodiment of the presentinvention;

FIGS. 6A and 6B illustrate a flowchart of a method of controllinginformation scrolling on a touch screen according to an embodiment ofthe present invention;

FIGS. 7A through 7D illustrate an expansion and a reduction of a scrollcontrolling region according to an embodiment of the present invention;and

FIGS. 8A and 8B illustrate a displaying of a scroll pointer and atouched location according to an embodiment of the present invention.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE EMBODIMENTS

Reference will now be made in detail to the present embodiments of thepresent invention, examples of which are illustrated in the accompanyingdrawings, wherein like reference numerals refer to the like elementsthroughout. The embodiments are described below in order to explain thepresent invention by referring to the figures.

FIGS. 1A through 1D illustrate scroll bars according to embodiments ofthe present invention. Referring to FIG. 1A, the scroll bar includes ascroll pointer 110 (which is also referred to as a thumb, a knob, or ascroll box) and a moving region 120 for the scroll pointer 110. FIG. 1Billustrates a scroll bar that has a different form from the scroll barillustrated in FIG. 1A. Specifically, the scroll bar of FIG. 1B includesa base line 130 through which the scroll pointer 110 is moved. A scrollbar illustrated in FIG. 1C includes a left and right moving region.Thus, the scroll pointer 110 of FIG. 1C moves in a left or a rightdirection. Conversely, a scroll bar illustrated in FIG. 1C includes anupward and downward moving region. Thus, the scroll pointer 110 of FIG.1D moves upward or downward.

FIGS. 2A and 2B respectively illustrate a scroll bar and a sliderdisplayed on a touch screen according to an embodiment of the presentinvention. Referring to FIG. 2A, the scroll bar generally scrollslocations on a screen. Referring to FIG. 2B, the slider changes anumerical information value. Thus, as illustrated in FIG. 2A, a viewport region exists on a touch screen displaying the scroll bar and.Also, as illustrated in FIG. 2B, a numerical value displaying regionrepresenting the numerical value corresponding to the slider exists on atouch screen displaying the slider.

FIG. 3 illustrates a moving of a scroll pointer 310 on a touch screenaccording to an embodiment of the present invention. Referring to FIG.3, the scroll pointer 310 is touched by a finger (or a device such as atouch screen pen) on the touch screen and the scroll pointer 310 movesfrom left to right.

FIG. 4 is a conceptual diagram illustrating a method of controllinginformation scrolling on a touch screen 400 according to an embodimentof the present invention. In the current embodiment, a zoom-in operationis embedded in the scroll bar. Referring to FIG. 4, when a scrollcontrolling menu is activated in a terminal, an information scrollcontrolling region 410 is displayed on the touch screen 400 in the formof a scroll bar and/or a slider. The scroll bar including a scrollpointer 420 may be displayed on an upper portion, a lower portion, or acenter of the touch screen 400.

While the scroll pointer 420 is touched by a finger (or a touch screenpen), a touched point on the touch screen 400 is dragged in a direction430 perpendicular to the moving direction of the existing scroll pointeror in a diagonal direction. When the location of the scroll pointer 420being dragged is out of the moving direction (or moving region) of theexisting scroll bar and/or slider, a scroll controlling region isexpanded or reduced. In this case, dragging upward and dragging left andright can be simultaneously performed. It is understood that theexpansion of the scroll controlling region 410 is not limited to anupward dragging, and may be realized in various other ways according toother aspects of the present invention. For example, the expansion ofthe scroll controlling region 410 may be realized by a dragging in anymoving direction perpendicular to a moving direction of the scrollcontrolling region 410 (i.e., if the moving direction of the scrollcontrolling region 410 is upward and downward, then a dragging in a leftand/or a right moving direction will expand the scroll controllingregion 410).

Thus, according to aspects of the present invention, a scale ofscrolling is expanded or reduced by one touch on the touch screen 400.Thus, information display locations on the touch screen 400 may beprecisely adjusted.

FIG. 5 is a block diagram of an apparatus to control informationscrolling on a touch screen according to an embodiment of the presentinvention. Referring to FIG. 5, the apparatus to control informationscrolling includes a touch screen unit 510, a memory unit 520, an outputunit 530, and a control unit 540.

The touch screen unit 510 displays image information and senses atouching and/or a dragging performed by a user via sensors that react toa pressure applied to a surface of the touch screen unit 510. A methodof sensing a touch on the touch screen unit 510 is well known and may bea pressure type method or a capacitance type method. Also, the touchscreen unit 510 includes a graphic user interface (GUI) to control aninformation scroll controlling region.

The memory unit 520 stores multimedia contents and a predetermined formof GUI information for scroll controlling. The output unit 530reproduces the multimedia contents using a screen and a speaker, and/oroutputs the multimedia contents to one or more external devices.

The control unit 540 performs touching and dragging operations accordingto a touch and a drag sensed by the touch screen unit 510, displays aninformation scroll controlling region having a predetermined form on thetouch screen unit 510, senses the touch on a scroll pointer of theinformation scroll controlling region, and performs a dragging operationat the location being touched. Also, when the location being dragged isoutside of the moving direction of the existing scroll pointer in thetouch screen unit 510, the control unit 540 expands or reduces theinformation scroll controlling region and adjusts corresponding content,parameters, and/or information (for example, information location andnumerical values) in response to the change to the information scrollcontrolling region. As described above, the information scrollcontrolling region may be expanded or reduced in various ways accordingto aspects of the present invention.

FIGS. 6A and 6B illustrate a flowchart of a method of controllinginformation scrolling on a touch screen according to an embodiment ofthe present invention. Referring to FIGS. 6A and 6B, when a scrollcontrolling menu is activated, the information scroll controlling regionis displayed on the touch screen in the form of a scroll bar and/or aslider in operation 605. The information scroll controlling region mayinclude the scroll pointer representing a current location on the screenand a scroll moving region. For example, assuming that a displayedcontent is a moving picture file, if the scroll pointer is located at abeginning of the information scroll controlling region, the start of themoving picture file is displayed on the viewport region. Conversely, ifthe scroll pointer is located at an end of the information scrollcontrolling region, the completion of the moving picture file isdisplayed on the viewport region.

When an object (such as at least one finger and a touch screen pen)contacts a specific region of the touch screen, the touch is sensed viaa touch sensor in operation 610. Accordingly, when the touch on thetouch screen is sensed, x and y coordinates of the touched point arecalculated and the location of the touched point is detected inoperation 615. Whether the touched location is in the scroll controllingregion displayed on the touch screen is determined in operation 620.

When the touched location is determined to be in the scroll controllingregion (operation 620), a touch starting event is generated in operation625. Furthermore, when the touched location is determined to be in thescroll controlling region (operation 620), whether the touched locationis the scroll pointer in the scroll controlling region is determined inoperation 620. When the touched location is determined to not be thescroll pointer (operation 630), the scroll pointer is moved to thetouched location and a location moving event is generated in operation635.

Then, whether the location of the scroll pointer in the scrollcontrolling region is changed is determined in operation 640. When thelocation of the scroll pointer is determined to not be changed(operation 640), whether the touch is completed (for example, the fingeror touch screen pen is removed from the touch screen) is determined inoperation 645. As a result, when termination of the touch on the touchscreen is sensed (operation 645), a touch completion event is generated.In this case, the scroll controlling region that is expanded or reducedat the time when the finger is lifted returns to an original scale (ormagnification).

However, when the location of the scroll pointer is determined to bechanged (operation 640), a dragging operation performed using the touchobject is performed while the scroll pointer is being touched inoperation 655. Specifically, a direction and/or a distance of thelocation being dragged from the location of the scroll pointer iscalculated. Whether the location of the dragged touched point is out ofa scroll moving region is determined in operation 660. For example,whether the touched location is dragged in a direction perpendicular tothe existing scroll moving direction (90 degrees) or in a diagonaldirection is sensed.

When the dragged location is determined to be out of the scroll movingregion of the scroll pointer (operation 660), the scroll controllingregion is expanded or reduced in proportion to the distance beingdragged. Here, in the scroll bar, dragging upward dragging left andright can be simultaneously performed. For example, as illustrated inFIG. 4, assuming that a moving picture is being reproduced on the touchscreen, the left side of the scroll controlling region is set to be thestart of scrolling, the right side of the scroll controlling region isset to be the end of scrolling, and the dragging upward from the scrollcontrolling region is set to expand the scroll controlling region, whenthe touched point is dragged to the upper right side of the touch screenwhile the scroll pointer is touched by an object on the touch screen,the scroll controlling region is expanded and the playback position ofthe moving picture moves forward.

Also, according to aspects of the present invention, when the touchedpoint is moved to both ends of the scroll controlling region in theexpanded scroll controlling region, the location of the scroll pointermay not be moved while the scroll controlling region that is notdisplayed on the touch screen may be moved. Thus, the location of thecontent relating to the scroll controlling region is moved according tothe scroll controlling region. As described above, the scrollcontrolling region may be expanded or reduced in various ways.

A location moving operation is performed in response to the change ofthe information scroll controlling region in operation 670. For example,the location of displayed information on the screen or numericalinformation values are adjusted according to the change of the expandedor reduced information scroll controlling region.

FIGS. 7A through 7D illustrate an expansion and a reduction of thescroll controlling region. Referring to FIG. 7A, a moving region of thescroll pointer is expanded to the left and to the right so that thescroll controlling region is expanded.

Referring to FIG. 7B, while the moving region of the scroll pointer isexpanded to the left and to the right, the location and numerical valuesof standard values for the moving region of the scroll pointer arechanged so that the scroll controlling region is expanded. For example,gaps between the location and numerical values of the standard valuesare expanded. The standard values may be expressed in a characterstring.

Referring to FIG. 7C, the scroll controlling region is expanded byincreasing the left, right, upper, and lower sides of the scrollcontrolling region. Also, the region of the scroll pointer is expanded.However, it is understood that aspects of the present invention are notlimited thereto. For example, according to other aspects, the scrollcontrolling region is only expanded along one side, two sides, or threesides.

Referring to FIG. 7D, an expansion region 710 and a reduction region 720for the scroll controlling region are set in the upper and lower side ofthe touch screen. When the touched point is dragged to the pre-setexpansion region 710 or the reduction region 720, the scroll controllingregion is expanded or reduced, respectively, to a limit value. Thus,when the object (for example, a finger or a touch screen pen) touchesthe added expansion region 710 or the added reduction region 720, thescroll controlling region is expanded or reduced, respectively.

FIGS. 8A and 8B illustrate a displaying of a scroll pointer 820 and 830and a touched location 810 according to an embodiment of the presentinvention. Referring to FIG. 8A, the location of the scroll pointer 820and the touched location 810 that is being dragged are displayed on thetouch screen. Referring to FIG. 8B, the scroll pointer 830 moves alongwith the object (for example, a finger) performing the dragging. Thedragged location of the scroll pointer 830 is represented by a line 840on the touch screen. Thus, a user may visually indentify the draggedlocation on the touch screen.

Aspects of the present invention can also be embodied ascomputer-readable codes on a computer-readable recording medium. Thecomputer-readable recording medium is any data storage device that canstore data which can be thereafter read by a computer system. Examplesof the computer-readable recording medium include read-only memory(ROM), random-access memory (RAM), CD-ROMs, magnetic tapes, floppydisks, and optical data storage devices. The computer-readable recordingmedium can also be distributed over network-coupled computer systems sothat the computer-readable code is stored and executed in a distributedfashion. Aspects of the present invention may also be realized as a datasignal embodied in a carrier wave and comprising a program readable by acomputer and transmittable over the Internet.

Although a few embodiments of the present invention have been shown anddescribed, it would be appreciated by those skilled in the art thatchanges may be made in this embodiment without departing from theprinciples and spirit of the invention, the scope of which is defined inthe claims and their equivalents.

What is claimed is:
 1. An apparatus to control playback of multimediacontents, comprising: a touch screen to display an information scrollcontrolling bar and a scroll pointer, the information scroll controllingbar and the scroll pointer being included in an information scrollcontrolling region; and a controller to sense a touch at the scrollpointer on the touch screen, to sense a movement of the touch in adirection to a location outside the information scroll controllingregion on the touch screen, to set a moving rate of the scroll pointerbased on the sensed location outside the information scroll controllingregion to control playback of multimedia contents, and to move thescroll pointer in a moving direction based on the direction of themovement.
 2. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein the scroll pointerindicates a playback position of a multimedia content.
 3. The apparatusof claim 1, wherein the direction is substantially perpendicular to themoving direction of the scroll pointer on the information scrollcontrolling bar.
 4. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein the controllerdetermines whether the touched location is in a scroll pointer region;and moves the scroll pointer to the touched location if it is determinedthat the touched location is not in the scroll pointer region.
 5. Theapparatus of claim 1, wherein the information scroll controlling bar isa single bar, and the scroll pointer is kept on the information scrollcontrolling bar.
 6. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein the scrollcontrolling region is changed to another control region responsive tothe sensed movement.
 7. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein the movementof the touch in a different direction from the moving direction of thescroll pointer sets the moving rate while continuously touching on thetouch screen.
 8. An apparatus to control playback of multimediacontents, comprising: a touch screen to display a playback track bar anda track pointer on the playback track bar, the track pointer indicatinga playback position of a multimedia content and the track pointer beingmovable at a first scrolling rate while a touch on the track pointer isdragged along the playback track bar; and a controller to sense adragging of the touch on the touch screen from the track pointer to alocation outside the playback track bar, the track pointer being kept onthe playback track bar, and to move the track pointer on the playbacktrack bar at a second scrolling rate if the touch on the touch screen isdragged from the location, the second scrolling rate being differentfrom the first scrolling rate and dependent at least partly upon adistance of the location from the playback track bar.
 9. The apparatusof claim 8, wherein the second scrolling rate is proportional to thedistance in relation with the dragged location on the touch screen. 10.The apparatus of claim 8, wherein the track pointer being placed on afirst end portion of the track bar corresponds to a playback start ofthe multimedia content, and the track pointer being placed on a secondend portion of the track bar corresponds to a playback end of themultimedia content.
 11. The apparatus of claim 8, wherein the touchscreen comprises a capacitive touch screen.
 12. A method for controllingplayback of multimedia contents on a touch screen of a computing device,the method comprising: displaying an information scroll controlling barand a scroll pointer on the touch screen, the information scrollcontrolling bar and the scroll pointer being included in an informationscroll controlling region, the scroll pointer indicating a playbackposition of a multimedia content; sensing a dragging of a touch point ina direction substantially perpendicular to a moving direction of thescroll pointer on the information scroll controlling bar after a touchis sensed at the scroll pointer; and if at least a part of the draggingis performed in a multimedia content display region outside theinformation scroll controlling region, setting a scrolling rate of thescroll pointer on the information scroll controlling bar based on adragged location as a result of the dragging.
 13. The method of claim12, wherein the information scroll controlling bar is a single bar, andthe scroll pointer is kept on the information scroll controlling bar.14. At least one non-transitory computer readable medium comprisingcomputer readable instructions that control at least one processor toimplement the method of claim
 12. 15. An apparatus to control playbackof multimedia contents, comprising: a touch screen to display aninformation scroll controlling bar and a scroll pointer, the informationscroll controlling bar and the scroll pointer being included in aninformation scroll controlling region and the scroll pointer indicatinga playback position of a multimedia content; and a controller to sense adragging of a touch point in a direction substantially perpendicular toa moving direction of the scroll pointer on the information scrollcontrolling bar after a touch is sensed at the scroll pointer, and toset a scrolling rate of the scroll pointer on the information scrollcontrolling bar based on a dragged location as a result of the draggingwhen at least a part of the dragging is performed in a multimediacontent display region outside the information scroll controllingregion.
 16. The apparatus of claim 15, wherein the information scrollcontrolling bar is a single bar, and the scroll pointer is kept on theinformation scroll controlling bar.
 17. The apparatus of claim 1,wherein the scroll pointer is movable at an initial moving rate whilethe touch on the scroll pointer is dragged along the information scrollcontrolling bar and the set moving rate is lower than the initial movingrate.
 18. The apparatus of claim 8, wherein the second scrolling rate islower than the first scrolling rate.
 19. The method of claim 12, whereinthe scroll pointer is movable at an initial scrolling rate while thetouch on the scroll pointer is dragged along the information scrollcontrolling bar and the set scrolling rate is lower than the initialscrolling rate.
 20. The apparatus of claim 15, wherein the scrollpointer is movable at an initial scrolling rate while the touch on thescroll pointer is dragged along the information scroll controlling barand the set scrolling rate is lower than the initial scrolling rate.